Foxconn to make Xiaomi phones in Andhra Pradesh

[Spacescreamer]

NEW DELHI/CHENNAI: An old Pepsi building in Sri City in Andhra Pradesh will soon start humming with activity again. That's where Foxconn Technology Group, the world's largest contract manufacturer, will make phones for Chinese brand Xiaomi.

Foxconn had begun work on the site across from the Tamil Nadu border two months after shutting down the third and last of its plants in that state in February. The Sri City unit won't be too big — it will make about 10,000 phones a day — but Foxconn has ambitious plans for India that could eventually make the country a key manufacturing base for the company, comparable with China.

The maker of iPhones and iPads for Apple and Kindles for Amazon is planning to set up 10-12 factories in India, each employing at least 10,000 people, with an initial investment of about $2 billion (Rs 12,700 crore) over the next five years.

The Taiwan-headquartered company, which has a client list that includes Cisco, Dell, Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard, plans to make smartphones, tablets, televisions, routers, set-top boxes and printers among other products in India, said a person aware of the strategy.

Making the iPhone in India may be some years away though as this "requires high-precision equipment and high investment, plus a larger supplier base. This could happen some years later as the first step will be assembly of phones", the person said. Despite being forced to close its plants in Tamil Nadu, the company is betting big on India.

"India is the top priority for the company, which is why Foxconn is already holding talks with various state governments," said the person cited above. Another person said the company is evaluating several states, including Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Telangana, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh, for establishing the factories and that a first round of meetings had been held.

In tandem with SoftBank

Foxconn's expansion plan ties in with the India push of Japanese telecom and internet giant Soft-Bank. On Tuesday, SoftBank announced a joint venture with Foxconn and Bharti Enterprises in renewable energy that will invest $20 billion over 10 years.

SoftBank chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son said his group and Foxconn are also in talks to form a joint venture for electronics manufacturing in India. The Taiwanese company will lead the venture with SoftBank playing supporting role. There is speculation that Bharti Enterprises may also join them. The government's 'Make in India' plan has given rise to optimism on the manufacturing front.

At the same time, experts point out that scale is integral to Foxconn's plans. Other possible infrastructure-related stumbling blocks include land and power supply. Support from the central and state governments will be critical as the company has indicated the need for tax incentives and policy stability, said one of those aware of the plan.

"Foxconn is looking at India for the long run," the person said. "There have to be setups in place to ensure that we can have a long-term plan." It could also consider a return to Tamil Nadu, where it's planning to set up a trial unit to make televisions.

A spokesperson for Foxconn Technology Group declined to comment on specifics. "We would continue to consider investments in India if they made commercial sense," the person said.

A Xiaomi India spokesperson said the firm's plans for local manufacturing had not been finalized yet. "Our manufacturing plans are still a work-in-progress. Until we finalize on them, we won't be able to comment on speculation."

Modelled on China plants

Foxconn chairman Terry Gou recently told Reuters that its Indian plants will be modelled on those in China, where it has 25 production sites employing more than 1 million people in total. Factories in India will scale up to China levels over time and will entail greater investment and the need to hire more people, in line with the aims of the 'Make in India' programme.

Apart from that, this year's Budget made imported handsets more expensive than those made locally. This has prompted handset makers such as Micromax, Xiaomi, Lava, Motorola, Lenovo and LG to say they plan to start production in India over time.

Given its global scale, Foxconn would want to make India a manufacturing and export hub, said one of the people cited above. That could halve time and cost of exporting goods to Africa or Europe compared with China.

Foxconn will bring some of its partner supplier units from China but is likely to source locally to build economies of scale, thus giving the Indian manufacturing ecosystem a boost. One of the people cited above said Nokia's manufacturing capabilities in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu would have been ideal for Foxconn to begin mobile handset manufacturing locally, but the asset freeze continues to be an issue, thwarting sale of the plant and eventual use of its machinery.

The company isn't sure if it should revive its own plant there, given the continuing labour unrest, the person said. The component-making plant was a key supplier to Nokia, which shut operations last year.

Source

 

[RS4]

Chandra Babu Naidu doing his best to bring more business in his state, Foxconn should be careful before opening tons of plants in India, this is not China, Most Labour unions are thuggish and often have local political support which cause problems every year and even local police is not much help in such cases according to my experiences. They should look for stable political environment otherwise they will have to keep shutting down plants like those in Tamil Nadu.

 

[Lord Nemesis]

When will these companies learn that India is not at all a suitable place for these kind of operations? Haven't they seen enough of how Nokia had to shut down due to a bogus tax notice. Nokia was sent a tax notice for $3.3 billion for a factory in India that just makes the lower end models of their phones and sometime later the whole mobile division of Nokia got sold for just 5 billion to Microsoft.

Leaving aside all the labor issues, let's see what Foxconn will do when some time in future, the Indian Govt decides to fill some of the budget deficit by sending a multi billion dollar tax notice claiming that India is going to considered the head quarters of their operations and that they will have to pay taxes for revenues earned in other countries.

These companies will do well to learn that "Make in India" is a sham and a scam and it will be in their best interests to not open these kind of operations in India only to be fleeced at the whims and fancy of the people and the Govt.

 

[nimod]

foxconn will bring their chinese labours too.
peace.

 

[Switch]

I feel dejected reading your comments. Did Nokia end up paying taxes for that bogus tax notice. Don't me want more units like these in India to generate revenue and provide employment. What Made in India sham are you guys talking about. Is China really ethical. What are the state of workers in Foxconn factories in China. Does you guys even care about that.

Don't you guys feel good when big companies plans to setup their manufacturing base in India. Who loses in that situation. Us Indians or them. I guess its a win win situation for both. More for us then them. They setup a plant in a undeveloped area, people there get infrastructure, jobs and land prices too moves up. I don't see anything wrong with it.

Regarding the govt. well these kind of manufacturing units are here to stay, governments keep changing every 5 years or so.

 

[Lord Nemesis]

I feel dejected reading your comments. Did Nokia end up paying taxes for that bogus tax notice. Don't me want more units like these in India to generate revenue and provide employment. What Made in India sham are you guys talking about.

^^ No, they ended up having to close the unit because of this unfair and bogus tax notice. From what I read, 8600 people were working there originally and by the time the factory was formally shut down, only 800 remained and the management had to work out a compromise and gave an average severance package of 6 Lac to the remaining employees. In fact Nokia's deal with Microsoft was also nearly jeopardized because of this as there was risk that this liability could pass to them thus doubling the cost of the acquisition. After Nokia shut down, Foxconn had to close shop as well.

What about the standpoint of the people that are running this company? You think its fine for our country to invite companies by enticing them with tit bits like cheap land, let them setup offices or factories, offer jobs and settle down and then arbitrarily start fleecing them at our whims and fancy just because we happened to have a budget deficit. If the employees are getting screwed in the process, no worries, it is all the fault of the company,so let the company bear the brunt of doing justice to the employees even the company isn't getting any? Is that what we mean by "Make in India" ?

If foreign companies compromise quality to reduce costs or indulge in some wrong doing, we make such a fuss out of it and go on a witch hunt, but its fine if our govt and people screw the foreign companies. Is that it?

Look at the Bhopal gas incident. The chemical plant was in India. The factory workers were Indian, Most of the management was Indian. Not a single investigator was able to prove that the incident was or can be caused though deliberate negligence and even because of an accident. There was compelling evidence to show that the introduction of water into the container was deliberate, yet our investigators completely ignored all evidence. refused to even consider it as a possibility and everybody blamed the CEO who was sitting in some other country as some sort of evil mastermind who was responsible for the incident. We wanted him to pay for his crimes, but what crimes were they? We simply didn't want to attribute the disaster to some Indian and so used a foreign CEO who has no role in day to day operations as a scrap goat to take the blame.

What about Uber? I personally don't even like the way they operate, but sill look at what happens.. An Indian driver who was involved in 13 molestation/rape incidents has a clean chit from the police and has a tourist cab license to drive anywhere in India which is not possible without a clean chit from the police. He rapes a girl who passed out in his car and the police want to book the Uber executives as co-conspirators for the rape if it were possible. It is not the fault of the police, not the fault of the govt, even the rapist is sidelined, it is somehow the fault of the Uber CEO and the executives. If you are a manager at a company and one of the people working under you happens to commit a crime, should you be liable for his actions just because you happened to hire him based on credentials that were from a known source.

So, why do we want foreign companies again? So we can have them invest money and provide jobs and then once they are established, we can screw them when ever it takes our fancy because after all we are entitled to screw them since we allowed them into our country?

 

[smnrock]

^ Dell, Hyundai, Ford, BMW... All are Indian companies?

 

[mithun]

When will these companies learn that India is not at all a suitable place for these kind of operations? Haven't they seen enough of how Nokia had to shut down due to a bogus tax notice. Nokia was sent a tax notice for $3.3 billion for a factory in India that just makes the lower end models of their phones and sometime later the whole mobile division of Nokia got sold for just 5 billion to Microsoft.

Do not know if make in India is a sham/scam, but this part of your statement is the sadly very true. Our Tax Laws are not only outdated, but also very complicated. It is actually too complicated for the "aam revenue servants" to comprehend. Thus, companies get served with obnoxious and often stupid Show Cause notices very liberally. Then the Adjudication process is defunct too and there seems to be no respite to the corporates. The lawyers make hay and the corporates end up with wasted resources and legal bills running into crores. Lakhs of cases pending adjudication at various foras. And I am not even going into the extortion/corruption cartels faced by the corporates.

As for the auto companies mentioned above, I guess they are already ripping us enough to make their ends meet. I bought a new Ford Figo for 5.7 lacs in 2014 ( a cheap diesel hatch by current standards). For the same price, in 2005, we got a Mahindra Scorpio. Suzuki is selling a 2 pot agrarian diesel hatch for 6 lacs and Hyundai a 1.2l anemic petrol hatch(i20) for almost 10 lacs. Toyota dishes out the Fortuner for 33 lakhs, for that much we could almost get ourselves a Ford F150 Platinum in the US. Make in India, works very well for the Auto companies.

 

[Party Monger]

When will these companies learn that India is not at all a suitable place for these kind of operations? Haven't they seen enough of how Nokia had to shut down due to a bogus tax notice. Nokia was sent a tax notice for $3.3 billion for a factory in India that just makes the lower end models of their phones and sometime later the whole mobile division of Nokia got sold for just 5 billion to Microsoft.

Leaving aside all the labor issues, let's see what Foxconn will do when some time in future, the Indian Govt decides to fill some of the budget deficit by sending a multi billion dollar tax notice claiming that India is going to considered the head quarters of their operations and that they will have to pay taxes for revenues earned in other countries.

These companies will do well to learn that "Make in India" is a sham and a scam and it will be in their best interests to not open these kind of operations in India only to be fleeced at the whims and fancy of the people and the Govt.

^^ No, they ended up having to close the unit because of this unfair and bogus tax notice. From what I read, 8600 people were working there originally and by the time the factory was formally shut down, only 800 remained and the management had to work out a compromise and gave an average severance package of 6 Lac to the remaining employees. In fact Nokia's deal with Microsoft was also nearly jeopardized because of this as there was risk that this liability could pass to them thus doubling the cost of the acquisition. After Nokia shut down, Foxconn had to close shop as well.

What about the standpoint of the people that are running this company? You think its fine for our country to invite companies by enticing them with tit bits like cheap land, let them setup offices or factories, offer jobs and settle down and then arbitrarily start fleecing them at our whims and fancy just because we happened to have a budget deficit. If the employees are getting screwed in the process, no worries, it is all the fault of the company,so let the company bear the brunt of doing justice to the employees even the company isn't getting any? Is that what we mean by "Make in India" ?

If foreign companies compromise quality to reduce costs or indulge in some wrong doing, we make such a fuss out of it and go on a witch hunt, but its fine if our govt and people screw the foreign companies. Is that it?

Look at the Bhopal gas incident. The chemical plant was in India. The factory workers were Indian, Most of the management was Indian. Not a single investigator was able to prove that the incident was or can be caused though deliberate negligence and even because of an accident. There was compelling evidence to show that the introduction of water into the container was deliberate, yet our investigators completely ignored all evidence. refused to even consider it as a possibility and everybody blamed the CEO who was sitting in some other country as some sort of evil mastermind who was responsible for the incident. We wanted him to pay for his crimes, but what crimes were they? We simply didn't want to attribute the disaster to some Indian and so used a foreign CEO who has no role in day to day operations as a scrap goat to take the blame.

What about Uber? I personally don't even like the way they operate, but sill look at what happens.. An Indian driver who was involved in 13 molestation/rape incidents has a clean chit from the police and has a tourist cab license to drive anywhere in India which is not possible without a clean chit from the police. He rapes a girl who passed out in his car and the police want to book the Uber executives as co-conspirators for the rape if it were possible. It is not the fault of the police, not the fault of the govt, even the rapist is sidelined, it is somehow the fault of the Uber CEO and the executives. If you are a manager at a company and one of the people working under you happens to commit a crime, should you be liable for his actions just because you happened to hire him based on credentials that were from a known source.

So, why do we want foreign companies again? So we can have them invest money and provide jobs and then once they are established, we can screw them when ever it takes our fancy because after all we are entitled to screw them since we allowed them into our country?

You just dont understand the idea of a company and how it operates, do you?

If something bad happens in a company plant, the company needs to prove that they have taken all reasonable precautions etc. It it their responsibility. Just cause workers were Indian and local management was Indian, doesnt mean the company is not liable. The person earning the profits and owning the company is responsible under law.

In the case of the Uber driver, they advertise it as safe, and they had not done their due diligence. He was a repeat sex offender and they missed it in their background check. If they cant do it they shouldnt advertise it as safe. If they do they will be held responsible.

This is not just in India, but everywhere in the world.
For ****'s sake take a deep breath and think, before you start punching out long ass dimwit replies.

 

[Lord Nemesis]

^^ For somebody who is deluded in believing that he is some kind of champion of anti corruption because you worship Aravind Kejriwal, do you seriously think the govt, law enforcement or regulatory bodies have no responsibilities and every thing that an employee does in a company is the unconditional the responsibility of the company and the people running it?

Companies are not arbitrarily liable for everything that a person they hired does. If an SBI or ICICI bank employee goes crazy for some reason while he is on duty and goes out kills or injures the people outside do you think that the CEO of these companies is liable for the actions of that employee? Do you think of a RTC driver goes crazy and deliberately mows down people with the bus that he is driving, the head of RTC is liable for it? A company is only liable for things that happen as a result of actions taken by the management, not for crimes committed by their employees even if they are on duty.

Take the Uber case, How do cab companies ensure drivers are are clean?, They rely on Police verification certificates. Every cab company including uber relies on these and because these are required to drive any car designated as a taxi . Our administration does not provide any other means like a Social Security number or something to be used to verify the background of a person. Every cab company in India uses the same process take drivers on board.

This uber driver had a Police verification certificate as well an All India tourist cab permit which supposedly cannot be obtained without a rigorous background check. Do you know how these verification certificates are actually obtained? Whether you have a clean record or not, you need to pay the requisite bribe and that is the only way to get it. Its not even that they ask bribes only from those that don't have a clean record. Its just pay the bribe and take your PVC. They don't do any verification. Uber actually presented the PVC submitted to them by the driver when he signed up (I have seen copy of it somewhere) and the police just tried to cover up their irresponsibility by claiming that it may have been forged. Further information on this was suppressed from the media. If it was really a forged document, there would be separate case registered against either the driver or the uber people responsible for it. No such thing happened.

But who are they kidding, it is almost public knowledge how the PVC are issued by our police. Even in Hyd, it is mandatory for every cab driver to have it in the cab and it must be displayed prominently. Every cab driver that has driven me to work has obtained his PVC by paying the bribe even if they have a clean record. In fact, after the Uber incident, the local govt said that they wound enforce these rules strictly and guess what happened, the police increased the bribe for issuing PVC.

But no, for our people, it is not the police responsibility that they gave Police verification certificates in return for bribes, it is not the responsibility of the criminal for having committed the crime, but lets just put all the blame on the company CEO because the company was unlucky enough to hire guy based on that PVC and he happened to commit a crime.

Same for Bhopal disaster. Our regulatory bodies didn't bother about doing safety audits or enforcing standards. The cause of the incident was not even investigated properly and is still a mystery to this day with multiple theories none of which were proved. A company is liable only when its proved beyond doubt that an incident was a direct result of deliberate negligence that crept in because of irresponsible behavior of the management about things like safety standards.

An incident caused by sabotage either by an employee or an outsider does not make a company liable. In this incident, no scientific investigator was able to prove how water could can enter the container because of negligent actions. Only vague theories were proposed which have no merits over other more probable theories. In fact, from what I read, there was no way for water to enter unless it was introduced deliberately. There was evidence to indicate that it was intentionally done. Whether it was done by a disgruntled employee or some outsider, it was never investigated and as per what I read, the authorities in India refused to even investigate that line because it was already decided even before any formal investigations were carried out that the entire incident will be pinned on the company as a means of ridding themselves of any responsibility and for appeasing the people. The fact that the head of the company who came to India was then allowed to escape itself shows how every thing is done at whims and fancy.

Sorry, company liability is not decided based on petty politics or popular opinion in any country. There will be due process and due investigation. It is only in countries like India that companies are forced to take take liability for things that they are not liable for and people or politicians can interfere and obstruct the regular course of justice.

 

[Party Monger]

^^ The more you talk on these things, the more you prove that you have the IQ of a monkey. For somebody who is deluded in believing that he is some kind of champion of anti corruption because you worship Aravind Kejriwal, do you seriously think the govt, law enforcement or regulatory bodies have no responsibilities and every thing that an employee does in a company is the unconditional the responsibility of the company and the people running it?

Companies are not arbitrarily liable for everything that a person they hired does. If an SBI or ICICI bank employee goes crazy for some reason while he is on duty and goes out kills or injures the people outside do you think that the CEO of these companies is liable for the actions of that employee? Do you think of a RTC driver goes crazy and deliberately mows down people with the bus that he is driving, the head of RTC is liable for it? A company is only liable for things that happen as a result of actions taken by the management, not for crimes committed by their employees even if they are on duty.

Take the Uber case, How do cab companies ensure drivers are are clean?, They rely on Police verification certificates. Every cab company including uber relies on these and because these are required to drive any car designated as a taxi . Our administration does not provide any other means like a Social Security number or something to be used to verify the background of a person. Every cab company in India uses the same process take drivers on board.

This uber driver had a Police verification certificate as well an All India tourist cab permit which supposedly cannot be obtained without a rigorous background check. Do you know how these verification certificates are actually obtained? Whether you have a clean record or not, you need to pay the requisite bribe and that is the only way to get it. Its not even that they ask bribes only from those that don't have a clean record. Its just pay the bribe and take your PVC. They don't do any verification. Uber actually presented the PVC submitted to them by the driver when he signed up (I have seen copy of it somewhere) and the police just tried to cover up their irresponsibility by claiming that it may have been forged. Further information on this was suppressed from the media. If it was really a forged document, there would be separate case registered against either the driver or the uber people responsible for it. No such thing happened.

But who are they kidding, it is almost public knowledge how the PVC are issued by our police. Even in Hyd, it is mandatory for every cab driver to have it in the cab and it must be displayed prominently. Every cab driver that has driven me to work has obtained his PVC by paying the bribe even if they have a clean record. In fact, after the Uber incident, the local govt said that they wound enforce these rules strictly and guess what happened, the police increased the bribe for issuing PVC.

But no, for our people, it is not the police responsibility that they gave Police verification certificates in return for bribes, it is not the responsibility of the criminal for having committed the crime, but lets just put all the blame on the company CEO because the company was unlucky enough to hire guy based on that PVC and he happened to commit a crime.

Same for Bhopal disaster. Our regulatory bodies didn't bother about doing safety audits or enforcing standards. The cause of the incident was not even investigated properly and is still a mystery to this day with multiple theories none of which were proved. A company is liable only when its proved beyond doubt that an incident was a direct result of deliberate negligence that crept in because of irresponsible behavior of the management about things like safety standards.

An incident caused by sabotage either by an employee or an outsider does not make a company liable. In this incident, no scientific investigator was able to prove how water could can enter the container because of negligent actions. Only vague theories were proposed which have no merits over other more probable theories. In fact, from what I read, there was no way for water to enter unless it was introduced deliberately. There was evidence to indicate that it was intentionally done. Whether it was done by a disgruntled employee or some outsider, it was never investigated and as per what I read, the authorities in India refused to even investigate that line because it was already decided even before any formal investigations were carried out that the entire incident will be pinned on the company as a means of ridding themselves of any responsibility and for appeasing the people. The fact that the head of the company who came to India was then allowed to escape itself shows how every thing is done at whims and fancy.

Sorry, company liability is not decided based on petty politics or popular opinion in any country. There will be due process and due investigation. It is only in countries like India that companies are forced to take take liability for things that they are not liable for and people or politicians can interfere and obstruct the regular course of justice.

Blah blah blah. Let me quote what i said earlier. "If something bad happens in a company plant, the company needs to prove that they have taken all reasonable precautions etc. "

No one made a case on Uber, they explored the possibility of misdoing on their part as is their job as investigators.

 

[blr_p]

When will these companies learn that India is not at all a suitable place for these kind of operations? Haven't they seen enough of how Nokia had to shut down due to a bogus tax notice. Nokia was sent a tax notice for $3.3 billion for a factory in India that just makes the lower end models of their phones and sometime later the whole mobile division of Nokia got sold for just 5 billion to Microsoft.

Leaving aside all the labor issues, let's see what Foxconn will do when some time in future, the Indian Govt decides to fill some of the budget deficit by sending a multi billion dollar tax notice claiming that India is going to considered the head quarters of their operations and that they will have to pay taxes for revenues earned in other countries.

Ah, this is possible because presently there isn't too much of a downside. if momentum builds up and more companies come in then it will become harder for the govt to pull these sorts of stunts in the future. The knock on benefits will create a barrier that makes it politically harder.

These companies will do well to learn that "Make in India" is a sham and a scam and it will be in their best interests to not open these kind of operations in India only to be fleeced at the whims and fancy of the people and the Govt.

'Make in India' is what the govt says, 'make FOR India is what these companies are hearing

No sham, its an opportunity to get a leg up over the competition in a massive market.

 

[smnrock]

Companies are not liable for employees act? Can someone explain what happened phanis murthy/infy case?

 

[Party Monger]

Companies are not liable for employees act? Can someone explain what happened phanis murthy/infy case?

They are ofcourse liable for things employee does unless they can prove he was acting in his own capacity and there was no negligence on part of the company. Dont know the specif case.